Iowa Farmer Warns of GMO Dangers

In his first experiment with GM crops back in 1997, it didn’t take Iowa farmer Howard Vlieger long to figure out that his cows were smarter than the Bio Tech scientists.

Cautiously optimistic about this new technology, he decided to see for himself what would happen when he offered his cows both GM and natural corn. Result: the cows walked right past the GM corn to get to the natural corn.

They left the GM corn in the feed bunk.

NOTE: In the above video, the mic is on Howard, therefore, Cindy Black’s intro is hard to hear.

A vigorous, unpretentious man with a determined look and boundless energy, Vlieger recently completed a two-week lecture tour here in Washington state to educate the public about the hazards of GM food.

He said he wanted to help Washington voters make an informed choice on I-522, the GMO labeling initiative whose fate will be decided November 5.

“We have a road map on how to win the battle of keeping GMOs out of the food supply: educate the consumer,” Vlieger said. “I don’t tell people what to think. I just put facts in front of them and let them make up their own minds.”

Vlieger took over the family farm after his father’s death in 1981. By 1989 Vlieger had taken up alternative farming, or what he today calls biological crop production.

In 1992 he founded Vlieger Farms Supply, a company offering nutritional advice on crops to farmers helping them successfully transition away from chemically-intensive agriculture.

In his work, Vlieger draws not only on his own experience, but also on the experience of fellow farmers. He tells the story of a farmer in West Central Iowa featured in the Farm Bureau Spokesman. The farmer reported problems with pseudo-pregnancies in his hog herd.

When the story was circulated, a number of farmers called the farmer featured in the newspaper, each telling him they were having the same problem.

As it turned out, the farmers determined they were all feeding their hogs BT (GM) corn. When they switched back to feeding their hogs natural corn, the pseudo-pregnancies ended.

The university investigators could not make a connection between the GM corn and the pigs’ problems. “Anecdotal information,” they said. “Inconclusive.”

But when the BT corn was gone from the diet, so was the problem, Vlieger said.

As for other livestock, farmers were reporting digestive problems and other conception problems directly connected to feeding GM grain. The evidence strongly implicated the GM corn and soy in the feed, he said.

Here too, it did not take long for Vlieger to realize that the hog farmers were smarter than these scientists.

Not to say that Vlieger is against science per se. Quite the opposite. When he had the good fortune to meet open-minded scientists such as Dr. Elaine Ingham, chief scientist of the Rodale Institute and a world leader in soil biology, and Dr. Don Huber, Professor Emeritus at Purdue, Huber told him that the Vlieger’s boots-on-the- ground, hands-on experiences and observations were the first step of science, Vlieger said. (Video: Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Huber – “There are ZERO long-term, independent peer reviewed scientific papers establishing the safety of GMO crops….”)

These scientists were happy to work with a farmer who noticed problems and patterns in his practice of agriculture. Dr. Ingham encouraged him to take the next step: to conduct a full-fledged scientific experiment.

In June of this year, with Dr. Judy Carmen of Australia as the lead scientist, Vlieger co-authored DELETE and published the world’s first double-blind, independent study of hogs fed GM grain and non-GM grain for their life span as a meat animal.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Organic Systems.

Specifically designed and carried out in a real-world on-farm setting with all of the necessary protocols and controls, the study showed two statistically significant findings.

First, the weight of the uteri of the GM-fed females was 25% heavier than the average weight of the non-GM fed females. The GM-fed pigs were 2.6 times more likely to have severe inflammation in the stomach. The males were 4 times more likely to have the severe inflammation, the females 2.2 times more likely.

The study drew international attention, and supported the work of other scientists he is in frequent contact with, such as Arpad Pusztai (UK 1999), Gilles Seralini (France 2012) and others. All have conducted independent long-term animal studies showing alarming adverse effects—e.g., organ damage, tumors, reproductive problems.

Almost unbelievably, Vlieger said, in our country the FDA did not require even one long-term animal study. The biotech industry’s testing was voluntary and no study longer than 90 days was ever submitted. When you get past 90 days, that’s when the problems begin, he said.

This work is not for the faint of heart. Consider the case of Dr. Arpad Pusztai, a well-respected scientist at the prestigious Rowett Institute in Scotland with over 300 peer-reviewed published articles.

When he sounded the alarm in regards to the foreign protein in GMO crops, he was brutally and viciously attacked by the biotech industry. The industry literally tried to destroy him, Vlieger said.

A similar fate befell Seralini in France. When he reported massive tumors, organ damage, and reproductive problems in his study of lab rats, the biotech industry mounted a furious attack despite the fact that he merely replicated the biotech industry’s own study in every detail but one—Seralini’s was for the two-year lifetime of the rats, not 90 days. (Seralini Lab Video)

Bizarrely, the industry was in effect attacking its own study.

Nevertheless Vlieger is upbeat that the tide of public opinion is finally starting to shift. People are realizing that when we quit using GM seeds and chemicals and return to re-balancing and revitalizing the soil, the soil improves. When we take away the GM feed, the animals improve. When we humans remove GM food from our diet, doctors report 100% of their patients improve, he said.

Vlieger likes to end his lectures quoting one of his mentors, Dr. Don Huber:

“Will future historians look back and write about our times, not about the pounds of pesticides we did or did not apply, but how willing we were to sacrifice our children and future generations for this massive experiment we call genetic engineering, that is based on failed promises and flawed science, just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise.”

The last slide in the lecture shows the image of Vlieger’s smiling 6-month-old granddaughter. “I’m doing this work for her,” Vlieger said.

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Charles Mish taught English, film, and journalism for 37 years at Edmonds Community College. After his retirement in 2006, he now divides his time between his home in Seattle and his homestead on Lopez Island, where he and his wife Clarissa grow biodynamic fruit, vegetables, and lots of flowers